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Amaury Séchaud, Member of the McKinsey Challenge Winning Team

Amaury Séchaud, Member of the McKinsey Challenge Winning Team

February 23, 2009

For the first time this year, the prestigious international consulting firm McKinsey & Company opened its annual case studies competition – the McKinsey Challenge – to students from management faculties and schools. In the past the competition was only for engineering students. As a result, HEC Montréal was represented at the 7th edition of the competition by two students from the trilingual BBA program: Amaury Séchaud (on the winning team) and Renan V. Baroukh.

The McKinsey Challenge makes participants into consultants for a day. The 20 participants, in five interdisciplinary teams, have to solve a real-world case related to the banking sector. Throughout the day, they can call on a McKinsey consultant who is available to answer their questions.

The winning team, of Amaury Séchaud and students from McGill and Concordia universities, earned top honours for the solution they presented to the jury made up of a McKinsey partner and two project directors. The winners received a $2,000 prize. In addition, like the other 15 participants, they are eligible for an internship position at the firm’s Montreal office.

Problem solving at McKinsey & Company

The Challenge is an excellent opportunity for students to learn more about McKinsey and gain experience with its problem-solving approach.

According to Wendy Bolyn, head recruiter at the Montreal office, students are selected through a very rigorous process. “For participants in the Challenge, we are looking for the same qualities as for our consultants.” Participants must have demonstrated leadership and their ability to convince others and to work as a team with colleagues from different fields, with different points of view. “This interdisciplinarity and these combined qualities,” adds Ms. Bolyn, “enable the team to view a problem from different angles and, in the end, arrive at an optimal solution.”

Left to right, the members of the winning team: Amaury Séchaud, BBA student, HEC Montréal, Mathieu Lépine, BComm student, McGill University, Valérie Larochelle, BComm student, John Molson School of Business, Benjamin Raffi, BEng student at McGill University, accompanied by Jakob Teitelbaum, analyst at McKinsey and head of the Challenge organizing committee; and in back, Éric Gaudet, HEC Montréal MBA graduate and McKinsey partner.

News >
2009 >
Amaury Séchaud, Member of the McKinsey Challenge Winning Team